Alienware Aurora 7500 Desktop PC

The Bottom Line
Alienware's Aurora 7500 is well suited for those looking for a customizable gaming system. The problem is the base cost of the system makes it difficult to get any options that will make it more competitive with other mainstream desktops in the same price range.

Pros

* Good Dedicated Graphics Card
* Many Upgrade Options Available

Cons

* Only One Gigabyte Memory
* Smaller 250GB Hard Drive

Description

* AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Dual Core Desktop Processor
* 1GB PC2-6400 DDR2 Memory
* 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
* 20x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS Graphics with 256MB Memory
* Integrated 7.1 Audio
* Dual Gigabit Ethernet
* Eight USB 2.0, Two FireWire, One FireWire 800
* Windows Vista Home Premium

Guide Review - Alienware Aurora 7500 Desktop PC
Alienware's Aurora 7500 is probably the least expensive model desktop they offer, and yet it's base configuration barely makes it into my mainstream desktop category. This means that users who want any customization or upgrades will quickly add to the cost of the system.

The Aurora line of desktops is based upon the AMD Athlon series of processors rather than the Intel Core models. The base configuration for the Aurora 7500 comes with the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ dual core processor. This is a fine processor with a long history, but it does fall behind in many performance metrics compared to similarly priced Intel processors. The big drawback though is the base 1GB of memory included with the system. It would be nice to see the base include 2GB as programs run much smoother with that in the Vista OS.

Storage is decent, but falls slightly behind what is offered in most mainstream desktops. The 250GB hard drive falls below the more standard 320GB drive in competing systems. It is possible to upgrade this but that adds to the cost. A faster 20x dual layer DVD burner is included though for handling CD and DVD media.

Graphics is where the Aurora 7500 does outshine most mainstream system. The GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card can handle 3D gaming alright. It definitely is a step up from what most mainstream desktops are using. Those series about gaming will want a higher 8800 series processor though.

What this means is that the Aurora 7500 is probably a good system for those that want to do PC gaming but have a tighter budget. As a mainstream general purpose PC, it probably is not the best choice on the market.